چکیده انگلیسی

Greater understanding of marketing systems and sub-systems is imperative if living standards and the quality of life are to improve in developing economies. As part of a World Bank project to aid in legal capacity building and socio-economic development, the authors are administering a field study in Bangladesh to assess that country’s legal system, and other key elements of its marketing system. Site visits and depth interviews were conducted with numerous stakeholders of the legal system. Drawing on those observations and interviews, and literature from macromarketing systems analysis, marketing service encounters, and service-dominant logic (SDL) the authors propose a model for explication of the judicial system, with broader implications for the marketing system. In doing so it is hoped that insights can be gleaned to help judicial authorities and public policy makers involved in reform efforts in Bangladesh and other developing economies. Such perspective will enable interested change-agents to better examine the entire system and to create a more transparent and efficient legal process that will improve service provision, marketing system efficacy, and justice, and ultimately will enhance economic and societal well-being.

مقدمه انگلیسی

Service-dominant Logic (SDL) is a growing force in the marketing academy. Initiated by Vargo and Lusch (2004), SDL is a seminal change in perspective; a reconsideration of marketing and its processes. The marketing discipline increasingly was/is viewed as too narrowly focused; it had slipped into what can be characterized as a micro dominated field of study. As an alternative to this paradigm of micro focused exchange, Vargo and Lusch argued that the discipline needed to reorient itself; perhaps to be driven both theoretically and operationally by the greater marketing system (cf. Shultz, 2007) and the service logic that operates within that system.
The emergence of SDL has sparked a great deal of discussion regarding how and where marketing must evolve to optimize its contributions (e.g., Lusch and Vargo, 2006a and Vargo and Lusch, 2006). A key ingredient in this suggested paradigm shift is to recognize the broader context and influence of marketing. Over the past five years, Lusch and Vargo (2006b) and Vargo and Lusch (2008) have inspired a reshaping of the discipline around the SDL conceptual framework, to better serve the consumer and to redefine the ways in which marketing both views and evaluates itself. A number of marketing scholars have contributed to this discourse through their publication of both theoretical and applied papers.
While the SDL movement has spurred a reassessment within the marketing discipline, one must remember that marketing is not alone in its ongoing examination of boundaries and orientations. Indeed, there has been growing recognition in a variety of disciplines (e.g., economics, environmental science, political science and law, sociology, and social psychology) of the inherent complexities and linkages to other systems that influence inputs, processes, interactions, and outcomes in a plethora of human endeavors. In particular, there has been recognition of the impact of many of these disciplines on the well-being of individuals and the broader societies around the globe in which they live. The Quality of Life (QOL) area of study, for example, has developed through the fusion of a number of academic fields (see Sirgy, 2001 for a review of QOL evolution). QOL research has attempted to integrate a variety of theoretical perspectives to study the myriad systems that impact the well-being of individuals, and the greater local, national, and global societies of which they are a part. Macromarketing research – essentially the scholarly examination of interactions among markets, marketing and society – has been similarly focused on new and eclectic perspectives (e.g., Shultz et al., 2009), including those evinced by QOL scholars (e.g., Sirgy et al., 2007), and scholars committed to the study of SDL (e.g., Lusch, 2006).
Layton (2008b) has suggested that Macromarketing and SDL share common ground; moreover, that an extension of marketing would be “significantly enriched by the study of systems and environments that become part of the wider discipline” (p. 226). Layton clearly envisages contributions from SDL as core to marketing and macromarketing. Vargo and Lusch (2008), sharing a complementary perspective, contend SDL can be the foundation for organizations as they evolve into complex service providers that are based on the demands of the marketplace. We believe this evolution could take on a broader systems perspective, recognizing, as do Vargo and Lusch (2008, p. 7), that “all social and economic actors are resource integrators.” Thus, it would stand to reason that a deconstruction or analysis of any particular marketing system (and its component organizations) might provide opportunities to assess the extent to which elements of the system (again, organizations and/or institutions that comprise it) serve its stakeholders; and, by extension, whether the entire marketing system serves or tends to serve its stakeholders. Subsumed in this supposition is recognition of the dynamic nature of marketing systems, and the important interactions that are present within them, as they serve – or fail to serve – stakeholders, and ultimately the impact on the QOL of individuals within or affected by the system. Furthermore, it stands to reason that an especially troubled or dysfunctional marketing system might most benefit from systemic SDL analysis and application, an issue to which we turn below.
A preponderance of the world’s citizens unfortunately live in what can best be described as dysfunctional marketing systems, replete with a variety of sub-systems offering non-existent or poor service, which falls short in the creation of economic and social value to deliver an acceptable quality of life of the society and its members. In this paper the authors share some findings from a longitudinal study of a distressed marketing system, Bangladesh. The intention is to provide fresh perspectives via integrative interpretations and applications of both Marketing Systems Analysis and Service-Dominant Logic (SDL). We furthermore intend to take (at least) “one step beyond a service-dominant logic” (Layton, 2008b, p. 219) by examining a key institutional element of a marketing system: the judiciary and citizens’ perceptions of its service value. In so doing, we strive to construct an analytical service model of the judiciary that can be used in aiding policy changes that will ultimately improve societal well-being and QOL in Bangladesh and other developing and/or transitioning economies.

نتیجه گیری انگلیسی

Emerging findings from this study suggest that the success of any marketing system is dependent upon the extent to which rules exist to ensure equitable exchanges and societal well-being. Markets and their processes ultimately interact with the other institutional elements of societies and, in essence, play reciprocal roles in the evolution of many of the structures and processes of a given society. This view is consistent with more recent SDL perspectives (see Vargo and Lusch, 2008) and with what Layton (2008b) refers to as System-Embedded Service-Dominant (SESD).
In both these perspectives the marketing system, and its ability to contribute to the creation of value in a society, is subject to a variety of forces from the larger environment. For example, Jahan and Shahan (2008) examined how politicization and corruption severely damaged the performance of another crucial market facilitating institutional structure of Bangladesh, the bureaucracy. They conclude that the bureaucracy operated in a democratic model that was completely malfunctioning; that is, one that “takes little account of the existing social, political, or economic structure of the state” (p. 327).
The result of this dysfunctional bureaucracy was an economy that was wrought with inefficiencies and ineffective market decisions. Add a legal and judicial system that is mistrusted and avoided by the majority of citizens for business and civil actions, and the impact on the commerce system and the marketing system is overwhelmingly negative. In recognizing this interdependence of systems and how they can facilitate a healthy economy, it becomes clear that a key element or subset of the even broader social system is an effective and efficient judicial system that justly serves the stakeholders of that system through access, process and equitable decision-making based on the rule of law. As argued earlier in this paper, the judiciary of any country, developed or developing, is a crucial player in the maintenance or evolution of any given country’s societal well-being or QOL.
It is unfortunate that often in developing economies, such as Bangladesh, the judiciary is frequently viewed by its people as an inaccessible and opaque apparatus intended to serve the needs and wishes of influential and powerful groups. This retards the development of the marketing system, disenfranchises many citizen-stakeholders, and adversely affects the QOL for an unfortunately large number of people. This disenfranchisement is equal parts tragic and ironic, because the inclusion of smaller, less influential entrepreneurs, marketers and consumers is a driver of marketing system development, and broader development of economic growth and, ultimately, societal well being and enhanced QOL for all the people. By conducting fieldwork and then constructing the Integrated Theoretical and Measurement Process Model, the authors have mapped inputs, forces, factors and outputs that affect the processes involved in the system. While some may view the model as overly cumbersome in its complexity, the need to “map” all potential influence points within the system for an operationally complete model is considered important. Future research may allow a more streamlined model to evolve. This map/model was designed to reveal factors to examine or points of intervention, which foment transparency and enable auditors to determine whether the system ultimately serves the people and that justice prevails, and implicitly whether the system can flourish and QOL for Bangladeshis will improve.
We close with some observations from the process that led us to offer the proposed judicial service model and the application of a service perspective to the Bangladesh Judiciary. A service orientation is not restricted to the private commercial sector. When applied to public sector institutions it can be both a diagnostic and strategic tool for more effective and efficient operation of those institutions. The public and private sectors are inextricably linked in their creation of wealth and QOL for members of the world’s societies, regardless of whether those societies use a free market orientation as the basis for their economies. Vargo and Lusch, 2008 suggest in their foundational premises (Table 1) “all social and economic actors are resource integrators” and that value creation is a function of “networks of networks” (FP 9) (p. 7). The judiciary of a country such as Bangladesh is but one part of the greater society. If it fails to offer value to the other enterprises and actors in the greater system, there is disruption and long term decay of the institution’s value in the society.
Finally, over the course of this study, we have come to recognize that in using the SDL and SESD orientations a cogent framework emerged to present findings to public policy decision makers in developing countries (and the project-funding organizations, e.g., World Bank). That framework allowed a presentation built around service as a fundamental basis of exchange. In turn, it can be linked to wealth generation and enhancement of QOL for the given society and all the actors, markets, and mechanisms that comprise that society. Thus, a growing body of evidence would seem to suggest that SDL and SESD can be extended to an array of institutions, enabling a more robust and effective contribution to the greater societal wellbeing of nations.